Zimbabwe Anglican church authorities have filed contempt of court
charges against ousted bishop Nolbert Kunonga for defying a High Court
ruling ordering him not to interfere with church services. The application
comes two weeks after High Court Judge Rita Makarau ordered Kunonga not to
interfere with church services conducted by acting bishop Sebastian Bakare
at the church’s Cathedral of Saint Mary and All Saints in Harare. In an
affidavit filed at the High Court, Reverend Christopher Tapera, the
secretary of Harare diocese, alleged that on January 20 Kunonga, who was in
the company of one Reverend Munyanyi, disrupted services at the cathedral in
flagrant violation of Makarau’s order. In a supporting affidavit, cathedral
sub-deacon Stanislaus Tsingo, said Kunonga barred Bakare from celebrating
mass with parishioners and openly boasted that he did not care about the
court order prohibiting him from interfering with services conducted by
Bakare. “As we entered the church in the traditional ceremony with Bishop
Bakare, I noticed the 1st respondent (Kunonga) had now removed all the altar
coverings leaving the altar bare,” Tsingo said in the affidavit. Kunonga, leader of Harare diocese until he was removed by the Church of the
Province of Central Africa (CPCA) to which the diocese belongs, allegedly
told Bakare that he (Kunonga) was still legitimate leader of the church and
that he was not going to let a situation where there were two leaders in the
troubled diocese. Tsingo said at one point he feared that Kunonga was going
to assault Bakare after he grabbed the altar missal from the later and
violently threw it to the ground in full view of parishioners. The High
Court is set to hear the matter tomorrow. Zimbabwean police have in the past
been called to quell violent skirmishes blamed on Kunonga’s supporters. The
clergyman, a strong supporter of President Robert Mugabe’s controversial
policies particularly his seizure of white farms for redistribution to
landless blacks, has tried to defend the Zimbabwean leader’s policies from
the pulpit. The CPCA says Kunonga, a recipient of land seized from a white
farmer, was deemed to have resigned last September after he unilaterally
attempted to withdraw Harare diocese from the CPCA ostensibly because the
regional church authority was too soft towards gays.
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